


Know I Am But Summer to Your Heart

by theswearingkind



Series: Play This Out in Several Variations [1]
Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theswearingkind/pseuds/theswearingkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morning comes, and Agron leaves Nasir behind, and Castus cannot begin to fathom how he does it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Know I Am But Summer to Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a present for static_abyss, who wants all the Castus, and for Spartacus Fan Challenges' Underappreciated Character prompt for October. Sorry it's not very good, bb. 
> 
> It's also unbeta'd, so, you know, make of that what you will.
> 
> Title from Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Morning comes, and Agron leaves Nasir behind, and Castus cannot begin to fathom how he does it. Castus has known the boy only weeks, and already he cannot imagine a day without Nasir in it, his eyes and laugh and smile the only bright things in Castus’ too-cold, too-steady world. Nasir is like the sea; Castus knows there is danger there, but when he looks at Nasir he sees not the threat of storms but only possibilities, the gentle rock of waves and sweet call of freedom.

He can admit that he was wrong about Agron, about what they felt for one another. He did not stand so far away at celebration before Crixus’ departure that he could not hear them talking to one another. Nasir’s pain at Agron’s words was a real thing, Agron’s at speaking them no less so. 

He sees now that there must have been passion between them, and tenderness too, even if he was not privy to it until that moment. Even if he had not imagined the German fuck capable of such. 

When Agron released him from bondage in the mountains, he had thought it a sign, proof of Nasir’s true feelings at last coming to light. Now he begins to wonder—

But no. Nasir cares for him. Castus may have been wrong about what the boy felt for Agron, but he is not wrong in this, as well. 

Agron has been gone some ten days when Castus returns to his tent after night patrol and finds Nasir waiting for him, smile pitched and inviting, eyes welcoming, looking once more like the boy who stumbled, wine-shy, into Castus on night they first met.

Castus knows that Nasir is not so unmoved by his man’s abandonment as he has pretended to be. And Castus is a good man, he thinks—at least he is learning—but he is not yet so good that he will not take this when it is on offer, not when it is something he has wanted so desperately for as long as he known to want it. 

It is just as good as he had thought it would be. Better.

Afterward, Nasir presses kiss to his lips and then drifts away—to his duties or his tent, Castus does not know. Castus does not see him all the next day, but when night falls, Nasir is there again, once more in his bed, his arms, and Castus, gods help him, does not know how to say no. Does not even want to learn. 

Nasir comes to him every night. Nasir leaves him every night, as well, though Castus fancies that each night he delays a few moments longer.

It is enough, though, Castus thinks. For now, it is enough.

*

Some weeks later, the rains that have threatened all day at last break wide. They are stinging, torrential, and it is no great surprise that the tent-flap remains fastened long past the hour that Nasir usually appears. 

And Castus, who was sometimes used to spend weeks on the sea without a single fuck of any note, finds he cannot be without the taste of Nasir’s lips, the heat of Nasir’s thighs, for even single night.

The lamps in Nasir’s tent have all burned low when Castus slips inside, dropping his sodden cloak by tent’s entrance, but there is light enough to see by: light enough to make out Nasir curled alone on his bedroll, eyes closed in fitful slumber, and though it is an unseasonably warm night, he is wrapped tightly in his blankets, face half-obscured and nose burrowed under the folds.

Castus cannot contain the smile he feels stealing across his face at the sight. Nasir is so skilled, so competent and strong, that sometimes Castus forgets how very young he is, still. Lying there huddled in his blankets, he looks far too young to have done half of the things Castus know him capable of. Half of the things Castus has done _with_ him.

Castus moves closer as quietly as he can; he does not wish to startle Nasir awake. Despite earlier intention, he finds he would not mind if they did not fuck tonight. He wishes only to be by Nasir’s side.

Up so close, Castus can see the delicate sweep of Nasir’s black lashes fanned out against his tan skin, the way Nasir’s eyes move rapidly with dreams underneath his closed eyelids, and it makes something fierce and protective rise up within him. He wants to wrap Nasir up in his arms as tightly as Nasir has wrapped himself up in his blanket, wants to burrow beside him under the knotty blue cloth until they create their own warmth. Wants to know what it is to spend the night with him, to wake to the sight of Nasir waking.

Nasir makes a wounded, sleepy noise, then, and rolls onto his back, the movement opening up a space on the cot just wide enough for Castus to fit himself, if they lie close together. Were Nasir awake, it would be clear invitation. He is not awake, but oh, how Castus _wants_.

Still, he hesitates. Nasir did not invite him here, has _never_ invited him here, and that is important. But he comes to Castus most every night, and he has not troubled to hide their association from the others in the camp—and that must be important, too.

Nasir sighs in his sleep, the sound low and somehow painful, and that settles the question. Castus cannot leave him thus. 

He begins to lower himself to the cot slowly, so as not to wake Nasir, but as he does so, something about the blanket catches his eye. It is, he realizes after a moment’s pause, no blanket at all, but a cloak—a cloak, somewhat tattered and worse for wear, and not at all like the one he has seen Nasir wear in colder weather. That one lies strewn on the floor near Nasir’s spear and braces. Nevertheless, something about this cloak seems—familiar, and Castus would swear he has seen it before— 

And then his love-slow mind makes the connection, and it feels abruptly as though a fist has closed around his heart. 

Because he has seen it before, of course, and not so very long ago. How could he have failed to recognize the cloak that Agron wore when first he set Castus free?

He leaves Nasir sleeping, wrapped in his man’s cloak.

*

The next night is clear. Nasir comes to him again, and smiles, and for all the world Castus would swear there is nowhere else Nasir might choose to be.

*

It is not so very long after that night that Agron returns, his face a patchwork of bruises, palms wrapped in dirty scraps of cloth--returns just when Castus had thought him gone, truly gone, forever, and had struggled to cover his shameful relief with appropriate show of quiet support. There are so many returned to them who have been thought lost, even some Castus named as friend, but Castus scarcely sees them; he cannot bring himself to look away from Nasir, and so he sees the boy’s face as lays eyes again on Agron. 

Agron, he thinks, is not the only one who has returned from the dead.

*

Castus is not even surprised, and that is what hurts most of all.


End file.
